


less alone than previously anticipated

by tospreadthewingsofthesoul



Category: Critical Role (Web Series), The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: F/M, Fix-It, Found Family, Friendship, I haven’t actually watched all of campaign 1??, Look we were all thinking it, M/M, The Raven Queen is everyone’s mom, Vax and Kravitz definitely work together, but it’s not like violent, but the one we need right now, not the crossover we deserve, people die, they’re Reapers so they’re already dead
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-16
Updated: 2018-12-02
Packaged: 2019-07-12 22:54:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16004996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tospreadthewingsofthesoul/pseuds/tospreadthewingsofthesoul
Summary: The Raven Queen is not one to call in a debt, only allow someone so talented to waste his death. Luckily for them both, Kravitz has recently had some practice training new Reapers.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey all! I’m sure that someone else has done this idea before me and better. But hey, I never get tired of tropes so I figured maybe someone else would feel the same?
> 
> At any rate, this is mostly fluff/character exploration. I haven’t finished the first campaign yet, so let me know if I totally screw something up!

In many ways, being dead was exactly what Vax would’ve expected. He both felt and did not feel cold; he both did and did not have a body. It felt as though his eyes were open in utter blackness, but there was no real sight. There was no real anything.

Except that there was. The part of Vax that remembered how the passing of time felt thought that it had been a very long time. The rest of him cared not at all.

The thing that was was a raven. There was more, Vax felt sure. He caught flashes of echoes, as of from whispers in a huge obsidian room. He thought perhaps there were eyes. But these were the ideas of things, not the physical objects he no longer had a body to identify, and so it took all of his concentration to focus on the Raven. As he did, it unfolded in front of him, an endless origami figure of feathers and flight, watchful eyes unfolding into omniscience, into power and death and-

Vax woke, which frankly was not a thing he had ever expected to do again. Thoughtlessly, he squeezed his eyes shut against the candlelight, blinding after the darkness. He felt himself groan.

“You did quite well. You should be proud,” he heard from somewhere behind him. Vax groaned.

Which meant he had ears. And in hindsight, also eyes, a mouth, vocal chords. Somehow expecting to be sore, Vax hauled himself upright and forced his eyes open. They stung with tears that never came, protesting the light.

He was in a room. It looked like a strange hybrid between a study and a living room, and the cot he was siting on was angled oddly out in the open like an afterthought. There didn’t seem to be any open wall space to shove it up against. Vax took a quick inventory of the space, more out of instinct than any real sense of danger. If anything, he was quite calm. There were no weapons easy to hand, but there were myriad of possible improvised weapons, including several heavy candle sticks, an instrument case of some sort, a few heavy looking (possibly magical) tchotchkes, and what looked like an umbrella. There was only a single escape route- a heavy door on the opposite side of the room. The only immediate possibility threat was the man who had spoken. 

He was impressively well put together, in a way that reminded Vax, for one aching moment, of Gilmore. His black dreadlocks were pulled back and tastefully decorated with gold bands. His eyes were neatly lined with some shimmery gold substance, and while the cut of his clothing was unfamiliar, it was perfectly tailored and in contrasting textures of black. 

He was watching Vax with even, steady eyes. He had a quill in one hand, as if he had paused in the middle of writing something.

“I’m Kravitz,” he said, before Vax could open his mouth to ask. “Welcome to the Raven Queen’s service.”


	2. Chapter 2

Kravitz didn’t object to Vax’s restless inspection of the room. He felt surprisingly alive, full of a static electricity sort of energy. He kept picking things up, inspecting them, and setting them back down. He had no trouble putting his back to Kravitz, who kept watching him with that same polite weight. If Kravitz thought he could sneak up on Vax, even with his back turned, he was a fool. 

He didn’t seem like a fool. He answered Vax’s questions easily, with no hint of falsehood. He was a Reaper in the Raven Queen’s service, as Vax now was. The room was a pocket dimension. Vax didn’t technically have a body, just the ability to manifest one when he wished. Vax decided to wait for a better moment to experiment with that particular piece of information. 

“And why am I here?”

“Do you mean here as in dead or here as in this room?”

It was the first hint of humor that Vax had seen from Kravitz, and he had not yet decided whether he wanted to let it amuse him. 

“I know why I’m dead. Why am I here in this room?”

Kravitz had long since set his quill down, leaning forward on his knees and clasping his hands. Now he leaned back, passing a hand over his face. Vax wondered if his own new form would grow tired. 

“You’re here because I evidently don’t have enough to do without training the new help.”

There was a long silence in which Vax refused to reply, and Kravitz seemed to realize that he had been less than courteous. Finally, Kravitz sighed. 

“I apologize. Clearly you’re a special case, or the Raven Queen wouldn’t have assigned you to me. Very few who enter Her service become Reapers, and until recently, it had been a long time since I’ve trained anyone.”

Vax shrugged, and set the small bell he’d tightened his fist around back on the bookshelf. 

“I pledged myself to her service. She’d be a fool not to use me to her advantage.”

Kravitz made a noncommittal noise, then gestures to a chair next to his that Vax was completely sure had not been there a moment before. He flipped through the papers on his desk and pulled a single piece of parchment out. 

“Shall we go over your resume?” 

Vax let his first genuine smile creep over his face. He knew how capable he was, how dangerous, and he preferred it when other people knew it to. It always took them by surprise. 

He sat. 

Kravitz skimmed over the parchment. “A rogue, hmm? That could be useful. It’s not a common skill set. And a paladin, as well. We can definitely use that. Though it will be different, now that the Queen has called in your debt. You will be much more powerful in some ways, less powerful in others. 

“An impressive list of accomplishments, too, though it seems you may be a little under qualified for solo missions. We’ll have to-“

Before Vax could think to take offense at this, the stone around Kravitz’s neck lit up. Kravitz tapped it, causing it to go dim again. He reached again for the parchment, but the stone lit up again. This happened three more times, and Kravitz sighed. Vax thought it sounded fond. 

“I’m sorry, do you mind?” he gestured to the stone, which Vax had decided was likely a stone of farspeech. Vax gestured his assent. Kravitz rapped the stone again, and a voice issued from it. 

“Hey, bone daddy, whatcha wearing?”

“I’m working, Taako.” The look he shot Vax was a little too fond to be properly embarrassed. 

“Oooh, I’m seeing a suit. Cloak? Skeleton face?”

Vax had the distinct impression that if Kravitz could blush, he would, but his voice remained steady. 

“I’m training, actually. No skeleton face today.”

“Aw, don’t wanna scare the baby reapers?”

Kravitz raised one eyebrow as he glanced to Vax, as if to say, “Seriously?”

“Anyway, babe, just wanted to see if you were in more of a sushi kind of a mood or more of a flatbread kind of a mood, because I’ve been playing with this new recipe, and...”

Kravitz listened with still, rapt attention while Taako described the particulars of the recipe he’d worked up. When there was a break in the conversation, he responded with a simple, “That sounds perfect!”

“Good, cause I’m already halfway through it. See you soon, bubbeleh!”

“See you soon.” A quick glance at Vax. “I love you.”

“You’re so fucking sappy. Love you too.”

The light in the stone went out. 

Vax cleated his throat once. Kravitz floundered for a moment, trying to gather his lost momentum. Vax was faster, though. 

“Lover?”

“Ah. Hm. He prefers boyfriend, actually.”

Vax crossed his arms, shifting his weight more comfortably into his chair. “And the Raven Queen allows it?”

There was no mistaking the absence of a blush this time. Kravitz nearly stuttered. “It’s, er. A rather unusual circumstance. As unlikely as it may seem, Taako is a servant of Istus. And I have been in the Queen’s service for... a very long time.”

Vax blinked a few times at the clear implication. He shouldn’t expect to get away with such things himself. It hadn’t been the aim of his inquiry, but he filed it away with brief memories of Keyleth, and Gilmore, for later consideration. 

Kravitz mistook his silence, or perhaps saw more than Vax would have liked. His voice became very gentle. 

“The first few years are the hardest. When there are still people to miss. It gets easier, after.”

After they all died. Keyleth and Gil and Pike and Grog and Percy and Vex. 

He was going to have to see Vex die. 

“She won’t send you for them until she thinks you’re ready, and unless you ask for it. She is many things, but she is rarely cruel.”

Vax opened his mouth to snap, but realized this throat was too tight to speak. He simply nodded instead. He swallowed a few times, then reset himself, straightening and lifting his chin.

“So. What happens to people when they die?”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hiya! I’ve got a few more chapters of this done, a handful more planned, and then I guess we’ll see? In the meantime, enjoy!

What followed was an interlude of time only measured by what Vax learned and the occasional break that Kravitz took to spend time with his boyfriend. Vax discovered that he was no longer strictly capable of sleep, and spent that time practicing discarding and reforming physical shape. His own features remained the easiest for him to construct, though details like lungs and veins and muscles were still beyond him. Well, he had always been unnaturally still. 

Kravitz showed him all of the inner workings of the astral plane, and Vax asked as many questions as he could think of:

“Do souls remain consciousness when they join the sea of souls?”

“Do you retain consciousness when you’re nothing but a ball of light and energy?”

“Yes.”

“Then yes.”

And:

“How do most escapees break out of the Eternal Stockade?”

“There is no most common way. Each tactic only works once.”

And:

“The material plane you speak of does not sound familiar to me. Why?”

“There are vast numbers of planes, some connected, some not. You are from a different world than I, but obviously the same planar system.”

“Does death work differently in other systems? Are there more Raven Queens?”

“Merle claims that there are multiple Pans. It’s difficult to tell if he’s embellishing, or mistaken, or completely correct.”

“Who’s Merle?”

And so it went. Kravitz seemed to appreciate the questions, rather than be off-put by them. It didn’t take long for them to develop an easy professional respect. They were both very good at what they did, and they both expected that in their companions. 

Soon enough, Kravitz introduces Vax to his primary team, and Vax hastily revised his view of the Raven Queen’s hiring process.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vax makes some new “friends.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So first I got distracted by Nano, then I finally bit the bullet and watched That Episode™️ of Campaign 2. Then I had to just cry for a week. But I’m back!

Lup was exactly the kind of menace that Vox Machina would’ve loved. Which was to say, Vax was at least 90% sure he was going to spend the rest of his undeath keeping her from setting things on fire that should definitely not be on fire. He ascertained this within the first 60 seconds of meeting her. 

It took only slightly longer for Vax to realize that Barry was just as dangerous. 

Vax had, with Kravitz’s help, carved out in his own piece of the astral plan to serve as a home base. In truth, he had very little purpose for it, except as a place to go on his rare breaks. And if he shaped it a little like a room in a certain magnificent mansion, and a little like the back room of a certain shop, that was his own business. 

It was here that Lup and Barry found him. There wasn’t a knock so much as a sort of vaguely warning banging, and suddenly two skeletal figures shrouded in floating red robes materialized in the middle of Vax’s room. Vax was intensely glad that Kravitz had warned him that two of his fellow reapers would be by to take Vax on his first mission. Without that warning, Vax would already have a pair of daggers in the air. They just gave off that sort of energy. 

“Ooh, babe, look! Kravitz’s new baby Reaper!” one of the figures crooned. Vax fought down a wave of deja vu. 

“Is it out of line to suggest that we play nice?” the other figure asked. 

Vax watched as the first figure sighed, and the magical wind whipping their robes faded away. At the same time, skin started growing back up over their bones, then hair and clothes and eyes. The whole process was much showier than when Kravitz did it. The end result, too, was much stranger. 

The first figure was tall, striking, dressed in black leather and golden mesh, thick curly hair falling down nearly to her waist under the robe. The second figure was slightly shorter and softer looking, dressed in a slouchy shirt and what Vax had learned was called denim. 

“Well, I guess if we’re doing this the boring way. I’m Lup,” the woman introduced herself. 

“And I’m Barold. A pleasure.” Barold held out a hand, which Vax shook politely. Lup made a disgusted sound. 

“Sure, Barold. Don’t listen to him, everyone calls him Barry.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vax is forcibly reminded of the people he’s left behind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow! The good news is, you guys are the best! The better news is you all inspired me to put up another chapter! 
> 
> The bad news is I’m just trying to get these up as quick as possible, so they’re likely full of errors. Sorry bout it.

The most challenging part of Vax’s first official mission performed in the name of the Raven Queen was trying to sort out what he was and was not allowed to set on fire. 

According to Lup, the answer was ‘everything’. Vax seriously doubted that was truly the case, but looking to Barry for guidance was equally useless. Barry accepted every explosion with complete equanimity. He watched Lup with a content pride, even as he swung his scythe in huge, vicious arcs. They looked nothing alike, but something about Barry’s expression reminded Vax of Percy. 

The necromantic cult was so minor that Vax would’ve felt confident throwing himself at them even without his new Reaper powers. They were truly pathetic. Lup and Barry seemed to be conducting some sort of mild debate over a dinner party menu while they fought. The bickering (on Lup’s part) and calm commentary (on Barry’s) was so similar a rhythm to the spats Vax was used to that it was almost comforting. There was a moment- just one- where the background noise of petty disagreements and the long sweep of his daggers was so familiar that Vax felt alive. For the first time since he’d woken to this new, strange existence, he felt like himself, invisible and swift and lethal. By the time they dispatched the last of the shambling undead, Vax was grinning. 

Lup clapped him on the back. 

“Atta boy! That’s the spirit!” Then she wandered over to where Barry was rifling through an ominous set of tomes with rather too much interest, and started torching things. Presumably for the hell of it. 

Cleanup was a desultory process- more a matter of making it clear to any budding necromancers who came poking around what had happened than actually disposing of any bodies. It was good for Vax, an outlet for his sudden restless energy. He still hadn’t figured out the trick of creating details like hearts or veins, but it still felt like his blood was pounding. 

Barry and Lup dropped him back off with a stack of paperwork with absolutely no instructions. Vax stared blankly at the spot where they had cut a portal. What was he supposed to do now? Paperwork? After that? 

He made a solid effort, in his defense. By which he meant he spread the papers out on the desk and paced, occasionally stopping to fill in some blank he could identify. It was dense stuff, sometimes written in languages that Vax didn’t speak. He was starting to suspect that Barry and Lup had left him their share as well as his own. Still, he filled out what he could- sloppily, perhaps, but, well. The Raven Queen hadn’t mentioned any paperwork requirements when they’d made their deal. 

Only once he felt like he’d completed what he could did he realize that he had no idea what the hell to do with it. Frowning, he tapped his finger on the desk. 

He pulled out his own scythe- reshaped into a much more practical dagger- and closed his eyes. He focused as clearly as he could on an image of Kravitz, slowly adding details as they occurred to him. He reached out and cut the fabric of reality. 

He expected to step through the portal into Kravitz’s office. Instead, he found himself on a pleasant little island just off the coast of the Sea of Souls. He stared at the grass under his feet, dumbfounded. There were flowers sprouting in front of a neat cottage, trees shading the front path. A whitewashed fence separated him from a woman playing with... a dog? 

Kravitz had shown him the Sea of Souls, walked him all the way around the shoreline. Vax was confident this island hadn’t been here. 

The woman looked up when she straightened to throw a stick, and her face split into a smile. She was tall, taller than Vax, broad-shouldered, her cloud of black curls held back by a bandana. She had a face made for smiling, Vax thought as she waved. 

“Hello! You must be the new Reaper!” The dog was pawing at her apron, and she rubbed his ears absently. “Cone on in! Kravitz is inside.” She had to throw the stick again to get the dog off of her long enough to get to the gate an open it. She waited patiently for Vax to find his feet. He was still frozen, clutching the dagger in one hand, wrong-footed and struggling to think of an appropriate reply. 

The dog was not so patient. 

It collided with Vax with a cheerful “whuff!” knocking him off his feet. The dog was huge, floppy-eared and slobbery, laving Vax in wet kisses.

“Okay, okay!” Vax gave in, scratching the dog’s ears and neck. The dog was snuffling him curiously, and Vax laughed. “Oh yeah? You smell something interesting? I probably smell like...” Vax trailed off. He probably didn’t smell like Trinket, actually. 

The woman was half-heartedly calling the dog off. “Spot! C’mere!”

“Spot?” Vax asked as he hauled himself back to his feet. The dog didn’t have a single spot, as far as he could tell. The woman shrugged. 

“Husbands. What can you do?” 

Vax snorted. “Fair enough.”

“I’m Julia,” the woman shook his hand awkwardly as they walked, Spot bounding around their feet. “You must be Vax’ildan.”

“Oh, just Vax, please.”

“Well, Vax, you’d better come on in.”

The cottage was just as cozy and well-kept on the inside as the outside, and there were even more dogs who greeted them at the door. Vax, laughing, tried to greet them all, while Julia introduced him to a burly man named Magnus. 

Vax managed to reach out a hand to shake Magnus’s over the sea of dogs. He and his wife both seemed corporeal enough, but Vax suspected that neither of them was exactly as alive as they appeared. 

The sound of someone clearing their throat from the kitchen doorway snapped Vax back to attention. He straightened, fighting the twitch of his hand to his dagger. 

To his continuing bafflement, Lup was standing in the doorway, arms crossed, looking completely unimpressed. But she was wearing a colorful skirt, not the dramatic robe he had just seen her in, and something seemed... Lup’s posture was just a little off, her hairstyle uncharacteristic for her. 

Vax blinked as the pieces clicked together. This wasn’t Lup. This was a twin. Lup had a twin. Just as Vax was realizing this, Kravitz appeared behind the twin, sliding his hands around their stomach. 

“Hey babe, I- oh! Vax! What... what are you doing here?”

Vax had no attention to spare for Kravitz. Lup had a twin, and the sudden reminder of Vex was like a blow to the chest. He had no lungs to need air, but he struggled to breathe, his mouth hanging open, trying to draw on air that wouldn’t come. 

“I. Nothing,” he managed through numb lips. “I. I’ll just.”

And his feet were carrying him back out the front door. There were people behind him, all talking to him at once, calling for him to come back. He didn’t stop.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vax communicates. Reluctantly. 
> 
> It pays off.

It was, strangely enough, and after the passage of some time, Barry who found him. There had not been many options of places for Vax to retreat to; his feet had wanted to carry him to his room in Whitestone, to Gilmore’s shop, to Keyleth, to Vex, to anywhere safe. 

He had ended up in the strange in-between office that was now the closest thing he had to a home. He had folded himself into the shadow of a convenient corner, the jagged bumps of his spine pressed painfully against the wall. That ladder of soft pain climbing his back was the only thing keep him corporeal. 

Vax noticed the portal Barry stepped through only peripherally. He was too focused on the jut of his knees into the soft flesh of his underarms, the curl of his fingers into his biceps. Physical sensation was muted and strange unless he deliberately turned it up. Barry lowering himself to sit next to Vax was like the ripple of wind through heavy curtains, movement, noticeable, but muffled. Or perhaps everything was just muffled right now. 

“So I’m guessing you didn’t get the Day of Story and Song in your plane.”

Vax shook his head mutely. He was having a hard time bringing himself to care about anything Barry had to say, not while every moment was filled with Vex, Vex, Vex. 

For one blinding moment, he hated Barry. He hated that Barry dared to sit beside him and not be Vex. 

But Barry didn’t move, didn’t push, didn’t do anything to trigger the boiling anger that threatened to spill over. He just sat, and waited, until Vax could breathe without shaking again. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he finally replied. Barry startles, but then connected Vax’s reply to his own earlier question. 

“Right. It was a whole... thing. There was a void fish. It’s an interplanar, psychic creature that can eat people’s memories.”

Barry completely misinterpreted Vax’s horrified, open-mouthed stare. 

“Oh! I didn’t even think- you heard static didn’t you? If you weren’t inoculated, and you weren’t in this plane for... but technically you’re dead so...” Barry trailed off into muttered theories, staring only blankly at Vax. 

Vax laid his hand on Barry’s shoulder. “Barry. I have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about.”

It took a great deal if explaining, and astounding m patience on Vax’s part as Barry said a series of seemingly random words and asked if Vax could hear them. He heard all of them, they just made no sense. If he was more sarcastic about his responses than usual, well, he’d had a bad day. 

And slowly, the story unwound. The seven birds, caught in their endless cycle, Lucretia’s destructive need to protect them all, the relics, the Hunger. The Day of Story and Song. 

It was an impossible story to tell without mentioning Lup by name, and by extension Taako. More than that, it was impossible to skim over their bond, the way that Taako had ached without even knowing what he was missing, how Taako was just as much an anchor for Lup’s lich form as Barry was. 

Vax grit his teeth and made it through, he felt, with a minimum of acerbic commentary. 

“So,” Barry concluded, “I assumed you hadn’t heard. Since you reacted like that when you saw Taako. Or maybe you had but you lost someone in the hunger. We get that sometimes, people holding one of us personally responsible for whatever they went through that day. I was hoping that it wasn’t, like, homophobia or something. So I went with the ‘surprised’ theory.” 

Vax waved that concern away immediately. He wasn’t about to get into his own tangled history with Gilmore and Keyleth, but he’d happily fight anyone who wanted to throw a fit about who someone else loved. 

“It wasn’t. It wasn’t any of that,” he said, staring at the dagger he was twirling thoughtfully. 

Barry made a noncommittal sound, the universal hum for “go on.”

“It was- it. I thought he was Lup, for a second. And I.” Vax stopped, tried to find a way to speak past the lump in his throat. “It made me think of Vex, how people used to get us mixed up.”

Vax didn’t look up to see the surprised O of understanding that Barry’s mouth made, but he could feel it regardless. 

“That, um. Actually makes a lot more sense than any of the theories that I had.” He ducked his head. “Do you... you must miss them.”

Vax nodded once, sharply. 

They sat in silence for a long moment, Vax too tired and contrary to break the tension. Finally Barry slapped his thighs and stood.

“Well then. That I can do something about.”

Vax stares blankly up at the hand Barry offered it, and took it more from habit than intention. 

“A couple of things. First of all, this isn’t technically allowed. But as long as you’re not seen, She doesn’t mind so much. And you’re kind of a special case. None of the rest of us had much in the way of family to leave behind, or else our family just kind of... bent the rules of reality just by existing. So I guess what I’m trying to say is don’t conjure a corporeal form and you’ll be fine. Deal?”

Vax nodded warily, suddenly strangely hopeful and refusing to give in to it. Barry clapped his hands together. 

“Fantastic! Alright then. You’ll need to focus on somewhere near where you think they’ll be, but hidden. We can be invisible, but a rift in space time is pretty noticeable. Can you do that?”

A slow, sharp smile spread across Vax’s face. His dagger-scythe was already in his hand. Already, he was shifting through memories of Whitestone, discarding the kitchen and all the bedrooms, the common areas and various closets that Scanlan, if visiting, would be prone to try and pull Pike into. 

Finally, an image solidified, of the room Vex had set aside for him. Whitestone was large enough that not every room need be filled, and something told him that everyone, and Vex especially, avoided whatever emptiness haunted Vax’s room now. 

He concentrated, and held out his dagger, and cut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can’t??? Believe how kind you have all been?? Seriously, though, knowing that people are reading this and enjoying it is inspiring me to keep writing. 
> 
> Also, we’re going to be hitting Campaign 1 epilogue territory soon and I’m. Behind?? Really behind. So if anyone wants to throw some stuff my way that you definitely want to see, let me know! Otherwise I’m gonna be wikipediaing this bitch. 
> 
> And then, perhaps, a certain tiefling?? Maybe??


End file.
